Cubicle 7’s ‘Victoriana’ Brings 5E to Old London
London in the 1800s. D&D 5th Edition. Do these two great tastes taste great together? Victoriana invites you to find out.
Cubicle 7’s newest Kickstarter, Victoriana, blends 5th Edition D&D with Victorian London in a sort of “there’s a secret occult world that only a ‘few’ people know about, but it’s also permeated all of society from the high to the low” situation. And the result sounds appealing. Intriguing even.
You play as Irregulars, which is what Victoriana calls adventurers. And your job is to find, fight, and/or truck with the supernatural entities lurking in the shadows of jolly ol’ London Town. Whether that’s evil cultists summoning malevolent gods or just your usual Fae court trying to figure out what a Telegraph is.
The book funded in 3 hours and is already well on its way to unlocking several stretch goals, including the recently unlocked custom character sheets.
Victoriana – 5E Adventure, Victorian London, Kickstarting Now
It is 1887 – the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee — a time of opportunity and oppression, magic and technology, evolution and revolution.
The Second Great Age of Sorcery is over. The arcane aristocracy grows increasingly desperate as the bourgeois technologists rise to eclipse their long-held dominance. Left behind by the progress of the industrial revolution, proletariat anger is at boiling point. The old social order strains and creaks as the balance of power shifts. The world is in upheaval, change is coming, and nothing will remain untouched. Everyone will have to take a side.
Some are quick to step forward. Small groups of individuals brought together by shared purpose and prepared to stand up and be counted. The newspapers refer to them dismissively as Irregulars, alternately scorning their earnest beliefs or cynical self-interest.
Drawn from all walks of life, each band of Irregulars is united by its own particular cause. One thing they all have in common: whether they are tracking down the horrors that still lurk in London’s darkest shadows, overthrowing greedy bourgeois captains of industry in Bermondsey, or throwing a wrench in the plans of degenerate nobles attempting to summon evil gods in Kensington Gardens, Irregulars will be found where they are most needed. Which side will you choose?
So in this game, it sounds like you get to kill evil gods, degenerate nobles, and greedy bourgeois captains of industry. Based, for sure. You can begin to see why this game is funded in 3 hours. But how will you be killing both titans and titans of industry?
With the rules of D&D 5E, Cubicle 7 has a track record of making “setting-specific rules extensions” for 5E. Doctors and Daleks come immediately to mind, but they have a catalog full of successful endeavors that add extra layers to 5E and tweak the system to fit the fantasy.
Which, for Victoriana, means:
- Enhanced rules for social interactions and investigation
- Broader rules for conflict resolution – win with clever words or ingenious plans
- Wondrous steampunk gadgets
- New character classes, backgrounds, and options
